By: Logan Bishop '24
Photo Courtesy of Chicago Literary Hall of Fame
Robert Sengstacke Abbot was born in Georgia to parents who had been enslaved prior to the Civil War. He grew up in a family that emphasized African American culture before he moved to Chicago, where he earned a degree in law from the Kent College of Law. Several years later, after failing to find success in the legal profession, Abbot created his own newspaper, the Chicago Defender. The Chicago Defender defended African Americans from mistreatment, campaigning against Jim Crow laws and the violence that stemmed from them. Abbot worked to tackle oppression through his paper, rallying African Americans and representing the struggles they faced through various media, including political cartoons that displayed equality as a dignified and attainable aspiration.
The Chicago Defender spread beyond Chicago, with hundreds of thousands of African Americans being able to access the news it spread. Not everyone supported Abbot’s paper though; the KKK threatened violence, and some restrictions and hateful sentiment required the illegal transportation of prints of the Chicago Defender. Numerous key events were covered in its pages, including the Great Migration (millions of African Americans moving from the South to the North), race riots, and events involving key movements for equality.
Today the Chicago Defender is digital and is still read by millions while maintaining its legacy of promoting racial equality and African American media.
Robert Abbot’s legacy does not end with the Chicago Defender. He also founded the Bud Billiken Parade. Bud Billiken was a fictional character in the youth advice section of the Chicago Defender. The parade began in 1929 and is held every year on the second Saturday of August. It began as a prideful celebration of African American culture and quickly became one of the largest and most popular parades in America. This celebration continues to unify African Americans, literally in Chicago, and symbolically across the nation.
Abbot advocated for African American rights all throughout his life, working hard to gain equality for his deserving fellow men and women. His greatest strength was his ability to unite others. He founded a paper that connected people across Chicago and the country, and he created a parade that gathers thousands annually. As Abbot declared, “No greater glory, no greater honor, is the lot of man departing than a feeling possessed deep in his heart that the world is a better place for his having lived”. Robert Sengstacke Abbot made the world a better place, earning the honor of a glorious life, and death, all hope to achieve.
Sources/For Further Reading